Missing Leslie
by snowstargirl
Summary: Jess’ thoughts after Leslie dies.


**Title: ****Missing Leslie**

_Summary:_Jess' thoughts after Leslie dies.

_Rating:_ K

_Disclaimer:_ None of the characters from _Bridge to Terabithia_ belong to me. I promise. I believe they belong to Katherine Patterson, Disney, and Walden Media (and perhaps other companies as well). I'm only borrowing them. I'm not making any money by writing this story.

_Author's Note: _This story begins just before Jess runs out of the house after he finds out that Leslie has died.

**

* * *

Missing Leslie**

Jess Aarons had been wary of Leslie Burke from the moment she'd beaten him at racing.

He'd stuck up for her beforehand, and how had she repaid him? By humiliating him in front of the whole school. She had not been his favorite person.

But somehow that girl had wormed her way into his life. Somehow, she'd become the best friend he'd ever had.

And just now, with nothing but words, Brenda had taken her away from him forever.

Jess had the irrational urge to tell her that Leslie wasn't his girlfriend. And then the bottom dropped out of his world.

He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe. He was choking, he was choking… but no one else seemed to notice. Everything was distorted; surreal. He had to get away from them; from all of them.

His throat closed up. He felt the sting of something warm behind his eyes and there was a roaring in his ears; his head was pounding and he couldn't make out a word anyone was saying. He put his hands over his ears and ran out of the house, tears streaming down his face.

He hadn't allowed himself to understand how much Leslie had meant to him.

Now the weight of what he felt for her besieged him. He ran like the wind, faster than he'd ever run before; faster than Leslie had.

His thoughts sped mercilessly through his mind, making him ill, until suddenly he was in his father's arms.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Weeks after the funeral; after Leslie's parents had moved away; after Jess had brought May Belle to Terabithia; after the world had returned, in its way, to a semblance of normal, Jess found himself sitting on the bank of the creek, staring at the spot where it must have happened.

He wasn't sure what he was doing here. He'd thought he was over crying about Leslie, even though he still thought about her almost every waking minute. And several minutes when he was sleeping, too.

He had thought, after bringing May Belle into Terabithia, that the rush of anguish he had felt in unrelenting waves for the first few days after Leslie had died had been quelled.

But this afternoon the grief had come upon him again, sudden and overwhelming, and somehow he had ended up here when he'd tried to outrun it.

And now here he was, sitting on the bank throwing sticks in the creek, the sorrow and confusion swelling inside him.

_Leslie,_ he thought. _Leslie, w__hy?_

But he wasn't sure whether he was asking Leslie why she'd come out here without him or why he hadn't been here to stop her… why he'd gone to the museum without her. It all seemed so petty now.

He didn't blame Miss Edmunds. And he had come to the point where he didn't blame himself, either. He knew he shouldn't blame Leslie, but he did.

Jess swiped furiously at his eyes. He shouldn't be mad at her.

But he was. Oh, how mad he was. How dare she go off and leave him like this?

He looked down at the dirt and picked up a rock, tossing it angrily into the creek. The anger left him with the rock, giving way to sadness.

Jess remembered Leslie's father telling him that Leslie had loved him. That it hadn't been easy for her to make friends. The boy he had been when he met her could have understood that. The boy he was now did not.

Suddenly he could see Leslie looking at him on the bus, the way she had done the day she'd given him his birthday present, and he recognized something else in her eyes; something he had missed while she was alive.

She had been thrilled that she finally had a friend.

Jess realized that Leslie hadn't wanted him to know how hard it was for her to make friends, because if he had, he might have been afraid that she would stick to him like glue. And then he wouldn't have stayed friends with her.

Jess wondered how he had missed that about Leslie. She had seemed so unafraid in life, as though nothing bad could ever touch her.

Then he remembered what had happened with Janice Avery, and it struck him that Leslie hadn't been as fearless as he'd thought. He smiled sadly.

Maybe she had been normal after all, under all of her strangeness, at least in that she needed other people. Maybe she had needed him as much as he'd needed her.

He wanted to protect her from everything she'd been afraid of, but he couldn't, now. Besides, he'd never thought to ask her what frightened her.

He wanted to tell her that he loved her, too; that he would always have been friends with her, no matter what. He thought of Leslie and how stupid that would sound to her. But he wanted to tell her all the same. Maybe, since she'd felt love for him, she wouldn't have minded so much if he told her that.

Now he would never get the chance.

He threw another stick.

But he had gotten the chance to be Leslie's friend while she was alive, and that was a lot more than most people had gotten to do.

He smiled, and this time it was a real smile. There was still sadness in it, but there was happiness, too. Jess wondered if he would have this new smile, the one with the sadness in it that hadn't been there before, for the rest of his life.

He wondered if his old smile had gone away the moment Leslie's death had registered inside him; if maybe he couldn't get it back.

He realized that if he couldn't have Leslie back, maybe he didn't want that smile back either. Maybe there was knowledge in this new one. Broken knowledge, and knowledge he didn't want, but knowledge nonetheless. Knowledge of grief; knowledge of happiness; knowledge of love unconditional.

Meeting Leslie had opened a new world to Jess; a new chapter in his life. She had brought him an unbeatable gift: imagination.

Losing her had closed the door on that chapter forever. But with every chapter's end came another's beginning. And he hadn't lost her gift; his mind was still wide open. Jess wondered what this new chapter held; this chapter that had begun all the chapters of his life without Leslie in it.

He wished that she could be here now, to help him through whatever new obstacles he came up against.

He stood up and sighed, looking at the stick he had been about to throw. He decided it would make a regal crown, if he bent it right. May Belle already had a crown. He smiled again, softly, and twisted the stick into a circle which would have been just big enough to sit on Leslie's head.

He knelt down again and placed the ringed stick gently into the water.

"For you, Noble Queen_" _he murmured, watching it sail away.

It dawned on Jess then that there would be more moments like this to come; moments which he'd thought he was done with after he'd brought May Belle to Terabithia.

But because of Leslie, he wouldn't fear them. He would learn from them. Grief would come again, but it wouldn't hold him prisoner forever. Leslie wouldn't be here to help him through his pain, but she had taught him how to do it. Leslie had, and God.

He bit his lip and looked up to the sky.

"I miss you, Leslie," he whispered. He closed his eyes. "Don't forget me."

Jess felt the wind on his skin as he opened his eyes. He stuck his hands in his pockets as he walked away, smiling his new, thoughtful smile.

**

* * *

Fin.**


End file.
